excel for mac does not import foreign language accents

This is because Excel automatically employs the UTF-16 format when saving a file as Unicode (.txt).

Its popularity and viability are due to the fact that a great deal of programs and applications support csv files, at least as an alternative import export format.

Moreover, the csv format allows users to glance at the file and immediately diagnose the problems with data, if any, change the CSV delimiter, quoting rules, etc.

All this is possible because a CSV file is plain text and an average user or even a novice can easily understand it without any learning curve.

The below methods work for all versions of Excel 2016, 2013, 2010 and 2007.

Below you will find the step-by-step instructions to export an Excel workbook to the CSV format by using Excels Save As command.

This format saves an Excel file as a comma-separated text that can be used in another Windows program or another version of Windows operating system.

This is a computing industry standard supported by almost all current operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris Unix.

So, if you Excel file contains data in a foreign language, save it in the Unicode Text format first and then convert to CSV, as explained in Exporting Excel to CSV UTF-8 or UTF-16.

The process is quick and straightforward, and you are unlikely to run into any hurdles along the way.

And if your Excel file has smart quotes or long dashes (e.g.

Word document that was copied pasted to Excel), these characters would be mangled too.

In this way you will keep all non-ASCII characters undamaged.

Generally, this format is recommended if ASCII characters are most prevalent in your file because most such characters are stored in one byte each.

Another advantage is that a UTF-8 file containing only ASCII characters has absolutely the same encoding as an ASCII file.

However, a UTF-16 file does not always require more storage than UTF-8.

For example, Japanese characters take 3 to 4 bytes in UTF-8 and 2 to 4 bytes in UTF-16.

So, you may want to use UTF-16 if your Excel data contains any Asian characters, including Japanese, Chinese or Korean.

A noticeable disadvantage of this format is that its not fully compatible with ASCII files and requires some Unicode-aware programs to display them.

Please keep this in mind if you are going to import the resulting file somewhere outside of Excel.

In most cases this wont affect the resulting file in any way and you can simply ignore this or use a more advanced text editor such as Notepad.

When you do this, the cursor will move rightwards indicating that the tab was pasted.

Type a comma in the Replace with field and click Replace All.

Excel For Mac Does Not Import Foreign Language Accents